AMD finally got around to delivering a driver update for the Vega M GPUs on Intel’s Kaby Lake G chips after 14 months. This seemingly redefines “AMD fine wine” and gives Hades Canyon NUC users a reason to dust off their small form factor PCs. What exactly is Kaby Lake-G, though?
A couple of years ago, before Intel’s Xe project came out into the open, Team Blue partnered with AMD to deliver a mobile Kaby Lake lineup that combined AMD Vega graphics with Intel’s 7th gen processors. Kaby Lake-G was shelved for a variety of reasons. Nvidia’s GeForce Partner Program, for one, arm-twisted OEMs into shipping GeForce GPUs. On the other hand, Intel’s own Xe ambitions (which included poaching Raja Koduri from AMD no less), limited their room for collaboration. After Intel effectively gave up on Kaby Lake-G, no new driver updates were forthcoming until the one AMD outed today.
Except even that sentence doesn’t quite cover the absurdity of this driver launch: the driver is officially available on Intel’s support page for Hades Canyon NUCs. Except that, instead of hosting it, Intel shares a PDF with a hyperlink titled “Driver Installation Instructions” which contains a link to AMD’s download page. Seriously, folks, have some chill.
Business hilarity aside, the driver update delivers the Adrenaline 2020 package to Hades Canyon NUC users along with all the goodies (like contrast aware sharpening and AMD boost) AMD’s packed in .
